KEY POINTS

• The FG says its prisoner transfer deal with Ethiopia fits Tinubu’s citizen diplomacy agenda.
• Foreign Minister Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu puts the affected inmates at 98, not the 136 circulating online.
• Four Nigerian prisoners died while both countries finalized the agreement.

The Federal Government says its Transfer of Sentenced Persons Agreement with Ethiopia, which aims to repatriate incarcerated Nigerians, aligns with the citizen diplomacy framework of President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amb. Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, made the case in a statement signed by her Special Assistant on Communication and New Media, Magnus Eze.

A diplomatic milestone for citizens abroad

According to Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the agreement marks an important milestone that prioritizes the welfare of Nigerians in the diaspora and reflects ongoing efforts to help those facing difficulties abroad. Moreover, she said the inmates are held in the Kaliti and Aba Samuel maximum-security prisons, which underscored the urgency of signing the deal.

The minister explained the principle behind the arrangement. “Essentially, if prisoners have been sentenced in one country and they are serving a jail term in that country, they can return to their state or country of origin to serve out the sentence,” she said. Furthermore, she cited the inmates’ precarious conditions, including health challenges, poor feeding, denial of visitation rights and language barriers, as reasons to act. She also revealed that four Nigerian prisoners died while both countries finalized the agreement.

Correcting the record on the inmates

However, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu dismissed a list circulating online that put the number of Nigerian inmates at 136. According to her, the figure is false, and only 98 inmates fall under the agreement. “The list trending online is a made-up list. We don’t have 136 inmates in Aba Samuel and Kaliti prisons,” she said.

In addition, she rejected claims that the prisoners come from one region. “A lot of them are from the South-East. There are also those from the South-West and the South-South. Crime has no ethnicity. All these people are Nigerian citizens in a foreign jail,” she said.

Consequently, the minister also countered fears that the inmates would walk free on arrival. She noted that the Memorandum of Understanding bars either country from granting pardon or amnesty to a transferred prisoner without the consent of the sentencing state. Ultimately, she framed the deal as a humane intervention, asking whether young people should face such conditions “for one mistake,” while stressing that the government intends to bring them home to serve their sentences with dignity.